gingival unit graft versus free gingival graft for treatment of gingival recession: a randomized controlled clinical trial

objectives: gingival recession can lead to root exposure and discomfort for patients. there are various techniques for root coverage. the aim of this study was to compare the use of gingival unit graft (palatal graft including the marginal gingiva and papillae) with free gingival graft for treatment of localized gingival recession. materials and methods: in this randomized controlled clinical trial, 18 bilateral localized recessions of miller class i and ii were treated in nine systemically healthy patients. recessions were randomly treated with gingival unit graft in one side and conventional free gingival graft in the other side. clinical parameters including clinical attachment level, keratinized tissue width, probing depth and vertical recession depth (vrd) were recorded at baseline and at one, three and six months after surgery. the healing index and patient satisfaction were also evaluated. one-way and two-way repeated measures anova and paired t-test were used for statistical analyses. results: both techniques caused significant improvement in clinical parameters. gingival unit graft produced higher satisfaction esthetically (p=0.050, 0.024 and 0.024, respectively at the three time points), higher healing index (p<0.001), higher root coverage percentage at one month after surgery (34.04%, p=0.011) and greater reduction of recession width three months after surgery (p=0.007) but the reduction in vrd at this side was not significantly greater. conclusions: gingival unit graft might be an acceptable modality in miller class i/ii recession defects. this technique may have advantages over free gingival graft such as significantly superior clinical and esthetic results.